


The Adventures of Levi, Chosen One Extraordinaire

by gaygermeister



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Attempt at Humor, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7178363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaygermeister/pseuds/gaygermeister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The new neighbor smells like (Thai Dragon Fruit, sometimes Vanilla & Moonlight) Febreze and Clorox and smoke, relies on microwavables to fill up his stomach, and seems to be a bit of an oddity.</p>
<p>Where Eren is, by choice, an overworked college student, and Levi is, not entirely by choice, the Chosen One.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventures of Levi, Chosen One Extraordinaire

They lived in a remarkably large yet ridiculously cheap apartment: four rooms, two bathrooms, a modest kitchenette, a living space (large enough for them to stash all their video games and to house Jean’s 50-inch TV, the latter a present from his mother who was so very proud that her Jeanie had gotten into the country’s most prestigious college), and a balcony. Truthfully, they’d all been very apprehensive about the price — aside from being the biggest apartment they’d ever laid their eyes on, it was also only a fifteen-minute walk from campus and everything else that probably mattered for students who lived away from their parents —, but, as a wise man once said, beggars can’t be choosers.

Besides, knowing how these things went, the rent was probably cheap because of awful plumbing, gaps in the walls or the ceiling where water would come in during rainy days, or other things which were a nuisance but could be patched up someday. Or they could just live with it, which was probably the more appealing choice because, between classes and slacking off during their free time (free time being a relative concept), who had time for that shit?

Putting all their theories as to why they had managed to land such a catch of a room aside, they soon came to know the reason why the apartment was so cheap. That was only because Reiner was, surprisingly enough, gifted with the ability to communicate with _them_ . _Them_ being the ghostly inhabitants lounging around the apartment complex. Apparently, the vicinity used to be a hospital that soon got turned into a graveyard because of the war and, because of housing issues, it became converted into the cheap-as-fuck apartment they all lived in around five years ago. There were instances when renters would just up and leave after two months, but that was only, as Reiner caught from the non-living grapevine, when they lived in the more… violent rooms.

One particularly, if not _the_ most, dangerous room was the one right across the one they lived in. Room 307, the room with a thin, rickety-looking door and a rusty-looking doorknob. The room where, Connie swore the night they realized that the hauntings were probably why the rent was the way it was, wails and screaming could be heard deep in the night. Reiner said that that was only the drainage because the only thing he heard from 307 was loud footsteps and laughter so deep that it seemed surreal; frankly, Connie wasn’t sure what frightened him more.

They managed to talk about their apartment building again on a particular Friday night when they could all be out getting shitfaced, but couldn’t because they were hitting an all-time low with their finances — Jean wasn’t, of course, but he decided to be the better man this time and stay in with his piss poor roommates. And Eren, though he surprisingly came from a well-off family, wasn’t really the sort to party; something to do with how he could be using his time reading his textbooks, re-writing his notes, and working a billion and one requirements for all the courses he’d zealously enlisted in.

They were all huddled in what they dubbed their commons area. Connie was sitting on an armchair and munching on his junkfood rations. Reiner and Jean were sitting on opposite sides of the sofa as the former switched from channel to channel and the latter languidly drank beer while checking his phone for updates on his social life, that was, looking at the texts of men and women alike who clamored for his attention. The coffee table was home to Eren’s laptop and mountains of books and papers; the guy was, perhaps, the only person they knew who appeared to be busy even if it wasn’t midterms or finals.

When Reiner deemed that everything tonight was absolutely rubbish, he sighed and threw the remote to Jean. who caught it without looking up from his phone. Jean promptly turned off the TV.

“This was a remarkably productive night,” muttered Reiner. “I should go—” Before he could utter another word, they heard cackling coming from the other side of the hallway. The apparently haunted side of the hallway.

“Jesus _fuck_!” exclaimed Connie. He clutched his bag of chips like it was his lifeline. He leaned closer to the back of his chair. His eyes were wide and seemed like they would pop out at any moment.

The cackling was replaced with loud thuds. When they heard someone banging on their door, Connie was clutching Reiner’s sleeve and staring at the door.

“You’d think people would mind more about their neighbors,” muttered Eren as he, for the first time in what appeared to be hours, looked up from his paper on the effects of electromagnetic interference on select hospital equipment. He glared at the direction of their non-existent neighbors’ room.

“You’d think you’d be more concerned about something else, like a psycho killer on the loose,” said Jean, his voice sounding rather hoarse, as he shot Eren an incredulous look. “We don’t have any fucking neighbors on this floor.”

Their ghostly neighbors soon quieted down. Connie let out a relieved sigh and went back to his chair.

Reiner broke the silence. “Jealous husband killed wife, the wife’s other party, and their children there. There was also a student who hanged himself, and then that couple who committed a lovers’ suicide by way of carbon monoxide poisoning,” said Reiner in a hushed voice, as if he was afraid that should the ghosts hear him, they would mangle him and leave his corpse to rot in the hallway. “Apparently, that area’s home to some human experimentation folk as well.”

Eren would have liked to point out how funny it was the way Reiner, who was tall and bulky and looked very much like someone who could toss you out of a bar if you went out of line, was very much like the old, kindly grandmothers in the small town Eren grew up in, grandmothers who liked gossiping with each other about who did what, and this and that happened despite so and so.

Jean, being the logical man that he was, called bullshit on it. Who the fuck did human experimentation in a (supposedly) democratic country? “Just your everyday urban legend,” he said. He frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Now we’re never going to get Connie out on midnight grocery runs.”

Connie, the man in question, laughed. A frail, I’m-okay-really kind of laughter that spoke volumes about how he tried to believe Jean’s earlier words. “Fuck you, guys,” he said. Croaked, really.

The only thing Eren had to say was “Those are some well-informed ghosts,” at which his roommates covered their heads with their hands as a sign of defeat because Eren was bad at realizing what people were trying to get at to the point where they were all pretty sure that he was probably that kind of person who was good at the things he wanted to do, but dumb as fuck with everything else. When he saw their dismal faces, Eren added, “What would you like for dinner?”, upon which they all remembered that Eren was the only one who knew how to cook, unless you counted Jean’s pancakes (it was all in the box, quite literally too) or Connie’s noodles (somehow he managed to get the best out of the cup noodles) or Reiner’s cupcakes (the red velvet ones were the best). It also helped that Eren was actually good at cooking; his specialties laid in meat and fish, which was, as far as any of them were concerned, the only kind of food that really counted.

With his words, all thoughts concerning their paranormal neighbors was swept under the rug. Well, not really, of course, because ever since then Connie seemed to have imposed on himself a ten-in-the-evening curfew, but that was very much like him to mind things like that.

 

* * *

 

It was around a week after this when the newest addition to Sunny Hill Apartments moved in. Connie had been hanging some of his shirts in the balcony when he saw a black VW T2 go up to their driveway and park right beside the car that rich businessman — Connie didn’t know if Erwin Smith was a businessman or rich for that matter, just that the man looked really snazzy in his suit, like he’d been born in it — owned. The driver went out and began taking out boxes from inside the van and placing them on the porch. 

Speaking of the driver, he wore, oddly enough for someone who drove a van like that and Connie really wasn’t sorry about his stereotypes, a black suit and black sunglasses. Kind of like someone from _Men in Black_. Except, based on how the man fared against the van, he seemed rather short. Short and maybe built as fuck because the boxes he was carrying were all terribly large. They were all wooden, all very large as said before, yet the man seemed to carry them as if they weighed like a feather. Though there was one thing out of all this that Connie found really odd and noteworthy.

Before then, he didn’t even know hippie vans came in black. He always thought they’d come in those psychedelic colors or those bright and eye-catching pigments they put in lava lamps. A monotonous one was kind of plain-looking. In fact, with the tinted glass, it looked more like the sort of van that snatched up kids that walked around at nighttime without the supervision of their guardian.

“We got a new neighbor,” said Connie as he went back inside.

Jean raised an eyebrow and asked, “And what did we learn today?”

“I think he has a thing for kids.”

“The fuck, man.”

Connie shrugged. “He’s got that mysterious pedophile kidnapper look going for him. Well, his car, at least.”

“Yes,” said Jean in an exasperated tone, “because a car is an adequate basis for judging another person’s character.” He rolled his eyes.

Connie snorted. “I hope not everyone who wants to be a lawyer sounds like an asshole like you.”

“By asshole do you mean well-educated?”

Before Connie could make a retort, the door opened and in came Eren and Reiner with the week’s groceries. Eren was bright and angry-looking as always, however, Reiner had a rather pale tinge to his face. He looked a little bit horrified; in fact, the face he wore right now reminded them a bit of the time when Reiner learned that his ex-girlfriend found out she was into girls because of him.

Of course, _everyone_ knew that doing the groceries with Eren was an especially horrific feat in itself because the guy liked arguing with the management about how this and that was wrongly priced or should still be a part of the scheduled discount, the bag boys because they didn’t know shit about where the eggs were supposed to be placed so that they didn’t break, the cashier because they didn’t give back his five cents or some shit like that, but Reiner tolerated Eren’s rabid housewifely grocerying habits — or, as Jean suspected, the byproduct of Eren’s unrecognized oppositional defiant disorder — the most out of all of them. It was probably even safe to say that Reiner was alright with Eren’s rocky relationship with the grocer’s staff and could even, in times of need, rein Eren. Pun intended.

Maybe Eren finally decided to picket fence the grocery store because they forgot to get out that one brand of chicken nuggets he liked. Reiner certainly didn’t seem like the sort of person who liked picket fencing.

“Someone’s moving in 307,” said Reiner, as if he’d read the curious glances from Jean and Connie.

“He says his name is Levi,” said Eren.

“The spirits seemed disturbed about his presence. They’re all scurrying away from him like he’s some kind of demon, either that or they’re becoming restless in a bad way.” Reiner looked like he was about to shit his pants. Guess the ghosts weren’t the only ones disturbed by this Levi guy. “He nearly threw Eren in the air like some kung fu master.” He seemed unsure whether or not to be terrified or awed.

Eren shrugged. “Probably because he was surprised. I _did_ tap his shoulder out of the blue. Just wanted to say hi and ask him if he needed help though.” He laid the paper bags he was balancing on the kitchenette counter. He had a scowl on his face.

“He said he didn’t want stupid brats rummaging through his shit.” Reiner placed his bags on the counter as well. He looked at the door to their apartment, at room 307.

Eren scratched the back of his head and said, “And then I guess I kinda made him a bit angrier because I wasn’t very happy about being called a stupid brat.” He began to put away the groceries. “He has that scary face. Like ‘I can turn you into mince meat and I won’t even feel sorry for it’ scary.” Which was an odd kind of scary but they got the point. “Got a stick up his ass.”

“Yeah, you’d know a lot about getting sticks up your asses,” muttered Jean.

Eren snorted. “You’re the one who wants the D here, you dick.”

“Did I just insult widdle Ewen?”

Before the two of them could unnecessarily get up each other’s throats — Reiner honestly didn’t know why they fought over silly little things like this because, as far as he was concerned, they both ‘wanted the D’ and, being constantly cockblocked by coursework, whatever else that went by their way —, Connie opened his mouth and voiced an opinion which he had been holding on for a while, “I think he’s doing illegal shit.” There was a certainty in his voice that could have only come from knowing that Levi the neighbor possessed a black hippie van.

Jean nudged Connie with his elbow and asked, “Jesus, what if he hears that? He’ll probably skin you alive and send you to the bottom of the sea.”

“What?!” Connie whipped his neck to look at Jean.

“You’ll have time to hide anyway. By the looks of it, Eren’s the first victim.” He stayed quiet until the point where Connie’s eyes widened like saucers. After that, he laughed and patted Connie’s back. “Just kidding. Honestly, you’d think drug dealers would choose a place less inconspicuous than an apartment that’s a few minutes away from a university for his base.” He laughed and the joke was lost on everybody except him. He covered his embarrassment with a cough and continued, “Anyway, maybe he’s studying, too. That’s what most people are here for anyway.” Safe to say he wasn’t a fan of conspiracy theories.

“I’m more curious about how he’s going to survive in there,” said Reiner as he jabbed his thumb toward the room across theirs. “You could say he naturally upsets the non-living, and I’m not sure if they’ll take kindly to that.”

“I don’t think the non-living are the only ones he upsets naturally,” muttered Eren.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think of it! :) Character tags to be added once they make an appearance.


End file.
